


tale as old as time

by psychedaleka



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beauty and the Beast AU, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, M/M, and eonwe as gaston, bullet point fic, finally getting around to cross posting this, i'm getting to it i promise, is this the most generic title ever, melkor as the beast, sorry it's not finished on tumblr yet, starring mairon as belle, yes but do i care? no
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28093665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedaleka/pseuds/psychedaleka
Summary: beauty and the beast angbang au, starring mairon as belle and melkor as the beast.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

  * A dark and stormy night a decade ago, the sorcerer Eru decides to test his two sons Manwe and Melkor to determine which of them get lordship over the small town of Almaren
  * Eru disguises himself as an old beggar and visits his sons in disguise
  * Manwe passes the test with flying colours; Melkor not so much
  * The beggar asks: will you spare some food and a room? It is cold and stormy outside
  * Melkor says to the beggar: I don’t have time for people like you; leave and don’t bother me anymore
  * The beggar says: I don’t have much to pay you with, but I have these three small jewels that are the last things I have of my wife, will you take this?
  * Melkor says: I don’t care, go away
  * Eru reveals himself then and curses Melkor into a horrendous form and his servants into inanimate objects, and gives Melkor the three gems (Silmarils) as a reminder of what he’s lost
  * Tells Melkor he needs to learn to love others before time runs out
  * (Eru’s not winning any father of the year awards)
  * Years pass, and under Manwe’s rule the town of Almaren prospers
  * No one knows what’s up with the creepy old castle just past the forest, but no one dares go there
  * The trees grow dark and twisted there; there are wolves, too, huge wolves with sharp teeth , and things that might’ve been the remnants of other animals, once
  * Skin stitched together with thick black thread and too many limbs; joints that bend the wrong way and hungry eyes; the forest is a terrible place
  * There are stories that a monster named Morgoth lives there, with his tormented prisoners, and some nights, you can hear screams echoing around the valley
  * Manwe still thinks about his brother but he doesn’t know what happened to him
  * Eru has been out of contact for years
  * Enter Mairon, the small town nerd<
  * His father Aule is the eccentric inventor, always tinkering with trinkets, and Aule’s widely liked though considered a little… strange
  * He passes on his love for engineering and handiwork to Mairon
  * Almaren’s a small town, where nothing happens, where the people are the same everyday
  * Mairon’s a little strange, with his head stuck in a book all day, but without doubt he’s the most beautiful in the village
  * He can’t accept that this is all there is; he can’t accept that he’ll be living the same day for decades
  * There has to be more to life, there has to be
  * He wants adventure, he wants to be understood and loved for who he is; he wants _more_
  * Cue: music
  * But he puts that aside, for now
  * Everything is going well— except for one issue: Eonwe, the son of Manwe
  * Eonwe is set on marrying Mairon despite some, shall we say, major differences in personality (sorry Eonwe)
  * The last thing Mairon wants to do is marry Eonwe, but Eonwe doesn’t seem to get the message
  * “As a specimen yes I’m intimidating” —Eonwe
  * Aule goes on a trip to sell his inventions and doesn’t come back; there are whispers all around town that he’s been captured by Morgoth
  * Mairon packs his bags and fastens his cloak with a little more excitement than a foray to almost certain death in the lair of a monster should incite
  * He doesn’t really care if he comes back or not; anything is better than another day in Almaren stuck with Eonwe
  * Mairon makes his way through the forest
  * The trees are dark, and he can’t see the stars; the shadows are subtly wrong here, and something’s following him but every time he turns back, there’s nothing; there are eyes in the foliage and not all of them are attached to a body
  * Cobweb streams through the branches and there are skittering things in the leaves
  * Mairon forges on
  * He comes to the remnants of a path: broken cobblestone that can barely be made out in midst of the overgrown weeds
  * He follows the path to a set of iron gates, twisted and rusted, and once it might’ve been imposing, mighty, even, but now it just looks— sad 
  * There’s a name, written there, but it’s faded and almost unrecognizable: Angband
  * Mairon itches to drag it back to his workshop and fix them, but that’s not why he’s here, he tells himself. He’s here to bring his father back



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed!! i'll be posting the next parts in the coming days (if i can remember)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A first encounter, and acclimation.

  * The castle is crumbling on the outside, and the window shutters bang in the wind; the gardens were once nicely manicured, Mairon knows, but it’s hard to tell from the tangled mess they’ve become
  * The front door opens to Mairon’s touch and he steps in
  * Unknown to him, there are eyes watching his every move
  * Mairon finds Aule
  * It’s not good; Aule’s being held in a underground dungeon cell, and he isn’t as young as he once was
  * Aule’s had the scare of a lifetime, and he wants to say something to Mairon, but he can’t— he’s stammering too hard
  * We need to go, Mairon says to his father
  * You’re not going anywhere, says the monster, who is cloaked in shadows
  * Mairon can’t make out anything about him except that he’s tall, and there are three pinpricks of light somewhere his head should be, and the light should illuminate the room but it doesn’t
  * Who are you to tell me where I can and can’t go, Mairon demands
  * I am the lord of this land, says the other. And I say: your father has trespassed onto my lands, and I will not allow him to leave
  * He is leaving no matter what you say, Mairon retorts
  * How bold of you, the other says, but very well. Your father may leave but you must stay
  * Deal, Mairon says
  * Aule leaves; Mairon stays
  * Angband, for that is what the castle is called, is large and hollow and rotting from the inside, like a chest that’s been pried open and organs clawed out, leaving nothing but blood and viscera
  * There were paintings, once, a man and his two sons if Mairon sees correctly, but their faces have been slashed into oblivion; there are the remnants of furniture, smashed to pieces on stone walls, splinters scattered on marble floors
  * Mairon picks the first set of rooms that isn’t completely destroyed, if only to get rid of the feeling of eyes staring at him, but it doesn’t stop, even with a locked door
  * He gets the fright of a lifetime when he picks up a pen and it _talks to him_
  * What the hell, he exclaims, throwing the pen to the other side of the room
  * That was rude, the pen says. I’m Thuringwethil
  * I’m Mairon, he says, though he’s still startled
  * Mairon composes himself; he won’t let something let this unsettle him, no matter how strange or unfamiliar it is
  * This is what he wanted, he tells himself. Or, at least, this is some of what he wanted: adventure, a chance to do something different, a chance to _be_ something different
  * He talks to Thuringwethil; he learns about the curse, but not how to break it
  * He learns about Melkor and who he was, but Melkor himself remains conspicuously missing
  * In another world it is a woman named Belle who stumbles into a fairytale. It is a woman named Belle who trespasses her way to a rose, who dances with the Beast— who falls in love
  * In this world it is Mairon, and he does not do any of those things— save the last
  * Mairon thinks: if I am to live here for the rest of my life, I will make this a good place to live; and Mairon rolls up his sleeves and gets to work
  * He finds a broom and sweeps up what cannot be salvaged; he scrounges up a set of tools from the shed and patches the remaining furniture together; he visits the library and learns how to do masonry and mends the chipped stone and crumbling walls
  * Mairon gets help, sometimes, but Thuringwethil is a pen, and Gothmog is a sofa, and neither of those really have limbs suited to construction, so they keep him company instead
  * It doesn’t take long for the castle to look semi functional again; it’s liveable but Mairon isn’t satisfied with good enough
  * He spends weeks drafting a renovation plan, but none of the changes take
  * It frustrates Mairon to no end because it’s bad enough that he has to improvise all his tools but now the iron refuses to listen to him? How is he supposed to do anything if the doorknobs refuse to unscrew?
  * Oh yeah, Thuringwethil says. Melkor doesn’t like just anybody touching his stuff
  * That won’t do
  * Mairon makes up his mind to go talk to Melkor



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoyed :)


	3. Chapter 3

  * Mairon and Melkor talk, properly, for the first time
  * Melkor’s a little surprised— but not that much, since he’s been covertly watching Mairon the whole time— that Mairon’s adapted so much and so quickly; he genuinely thought Mairon would be mad for longer
  * What’s the point in being angry? Mairon asks. I’m stuck here, and you’re not going to let me go, so I might as well make the best of it
  * It’s a far more rational response than Melkor might’ve had
  * Mairon’s pleasantly surprised by Melkor
  * He thought Melkor was all destructive, but he makes good points about the renovation, and he challenges Mairon’s assumptions at times
  * But maybe more importantly, they understand each other in a way Mairon had never experienced in Almaren
  * Is this what he’s been missing out on, all this time?
  * They come to an agreement about the renovation and start working on it together
  * Never thought you would get your hands dirty, Mairon remarks
  * Who do you think I am, my brother? Melkor asks. I don’t mind
  * You have a brother? Mairon asks
  * Of course that’s what you would focus on, Melkor says. He most likely believes me to be dead
  * That’s terrible, Mairon says.
  * Melkor shrugs. He says: he didn’t spend much time looking, and if he knew what happened— he wouldn’t bother
  * You don’t deserve that, Mairon says
  * Melkor’s not used to people sympathizing with him
  * Angband isn’t restored to what it was like before the curse; it’s made even better
  * The ice has been broken now, and things are different
  * They don’t stop talking to each other; they talk about all sorts of different things, from religion to science, life and relationships, and magic too
  * Eru’s a sorcerer; Melkor knows some magic from that, and as soon as Mairon finds out, he’s insistent that he learns too
  * So Melkor teaches Mairon magic, and they figure some of it out together, too
  * Melkor brings up the physical appearance thing, once
  * Appearance doesn’t really matter to me, Mairon says. I’ve never found anyone attractive before, if that means anything
  * No one at all? Melkor asks
  * Certainly I can tell why others think people are attractive, Mairon says. But I’ve never felt what people say happens when you see someone attractive. And you?
  * There were a few people, before, Melkor says. One of them, she, well, married my brother, which was rather insulting
  * Mairon laughs. He says: looking for a wife to break the spell, then?
  * Anyone really, Melkor shrugs. Gender doesn’t matter much to me
  * Slowly, slowly, they fall in love: conversations in the library, and walks in the (repurposed for agriculture, which is _much more efficient_ according to Mairon) gardens, and in the forges and workshops, smoke and oil in the air and Mairon’s hair, and the joy of creating something, together
  * Only: neither of them notice
  * What Mairon _does_ notice is Melkor slowly becoming more distant, drawn into his own rooms by something Mairon doesn’t know about
  * Mairon should bring it up, he really should, especially after Melkor fails to show up at a lunch date, but Mairon’s hardly the most communicative person around, and if there’s one thing he keeps under tight wraps, it’s jealousy
  * Almaren had discouraged jealousy and encouraged selflessness to an almost ridiculous degree, and Mairon hasn’t shaken that mindset just yet
  * So Mairon throws himself into another project of his and ignores the way Melkor has been ignoring him
  * Melkor, however, has been caught into the trap of the Silmarils, enticed by their light and the promises they hold
  * Thuringwethil and Gothmog see the two of them ignoring each other, too caught up in their own worlds, and says to each other, this won’t do
  * Melkor isn’t going to be happy if we tell him, Gothmog tries to argue, but without much conviction
  * Whatever, Thuringwethil says
  * She tells Mairon about the Silmarils
  * And what do you expect _me_ to do? Mairon asks
  * But Mairon tries anyway. He marches into Melkor’s rooms and demands his time
  * Melkor resists at first, too caught up the Silmarils and the fear that Mairon would try to take them away from him, but Mairon is just as— if not more— stubborn and he knows what’s at stake
  * Slowly, slowly, Mairon draws Melkor’s attention away from the Silmarils and back to the rest of the world
  * When Melkor finally realizes what’s happened, he could laugh or cry or maybe both at the same time
  * The curse is broken. Mairon broke it. He no longer feels that irresistible draw towards the Silmarils, taking him away from everything else important
  * They have a long conversation afterwards, after Eru and the curse, about the Silmarils, about Mairon’s issues with jealousy and being ignored, and they come out of it stronger, together
  * Mairon also convinces Melkor to throw the Silmarils away



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter i have written so the final part might take a few more days! i hope to have it up before the end of the year though

**Author's Note:**

> i'm also psychedaleka on tumblr!


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